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March 27, 2020

Grieving COVID-19 Losses

COVID 19.

I bet you haven't heard that enough, right?  It seems like everyone's life just got catapulted into this void of unknown as soon as COVID 19 moved into town.  I mean EVERYONE and EVERYWHERE.  No one is exempt which means everyone has a story to tell.  Everyone has experienced loss to some degree.  Everyone one has had to adjust his or her expectations for what the future months were supposed to be.  Everyone has had to put aside their own dreams, desires, and sometimes goals to serve the greater good; health and safety for our world.

Hear me when I say, "It's okay to grieve."

There is a lot to grieve right now!  Our world (collectively) has flipped turned upside down and left us wondering, "What now?"

  • Many of us have jumped on the train of positivity right away, making at home plans and goals, trying to keep ourselves feeling purposeful and staying hopeful this won't last long.  
  • Many of us have experienced guilt in even thinking about being sad because there are others in worse conditions than us.
  • Many of us sweep any feelings of despair away by painting nice God infused phrases over our feelings.  

I've experienced all these things.  So I assume, since we are all humans experiencing the same dynamics throughout the whole world, that you might have experienced similar things.

Personally, this pandemic has come at a time that I wouldn't have chosen. Go figure!  I have lived in Rwanda nearly 10 years and my husband and I had planned to move to the States at the end of May this year. Two weeks ago, we were still making lots of plans toward that move... then COVID 19 came to Rwanda.  Everything changed.  We had to cancel everything we had planned in ministry.  Being my last few months, I was anticipating many final events and going away parties to bring conclusion to a decade of my time here.  But a week ago, the lock down was put into place.  That's when it sank in.  This isn't going to end soon.  Several friends evacuated to their home countries.  We can't see my husband's family, who lives in the same city.  We can't have special time with friends.  We will leave without any real goodbyes.  Even when this does clear up, nothing will be as we had hoped it would be.  I wept... and wept... and wept some more.

And this is what I know about Jesus.  He wept with me.

He didn't tell me to stop crying and to trust him instead.  He didn't tell me that I shouldn't be sad because others are worse off than me.  He didn't tell me that sorrow has no place in my heart.

I know this because Jesus has great empathy and experienced a great amount of emotions when he walked this earth.  One example is that Jesus wept... when his friend Lazarus died.  And yet, he raised him from the dead a few moments later!  (John 11:33-44)  Jesus experienced grief and in the same breath he trusted in God the Father.  He did both at the same time.  And that means we can too.

And the best part for us is that as we grieve over any loss we've experienced in the past few weeks or months, we can be assured that Jesus understands our pain and has entered into it with us.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed." Psalm 34:18

God draws near to us in our pain.  It's not up to our performance through the pain to earn his approval.  He is committed to you because that's who He is! And He wants to listen to our hearts through this time of grave disappointments.  He wants us to draw near to Him in return.

"O LORD, how long will you forget me?  Forever?  
How long will you look the other way? 
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?"
Psalm 13:1-2

King David always prayed from the depths of his heart.  And sometimes it wasn't pretty!  But as he spilled out his feelings of despair, I sense the feeling of relief from being heard.  He ended this prayer with hope and trust in the Lord, demonstrating that he felt lots of emotions while trusting the Lord. 

"But I trust in your unfailing love.  I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
  I will sing to the LORD because he is good to me."
Psalm 13:5-6

So, my friends, as you think about what this world change means for you and your life, remember to allow yourself to grieve.  Remember Jesus has entered into the pain with you.  And you can trust God alongside grieving what you've lost. 




January 19, 2020

The Journey of Leaving


SURRENDER.  The morning of New Years Day, that’s the word Gervais and I chose to uplift in 2020.  We will be holding it close to mind and heart as we prepare to surrender our beautiful life in Kigali to the Lord as we close out this chapter and on to another. 

I bet you didn’t even know I had a blog until now!  I haven’t updated it in years probably because life in Rwanda became normal and it didn’t feel like a new adventure everyday as it once did.  It felt like home.  Three years ago I remember thinking… my life never changes.  I thought this as I watched friends get married, have kids, and make big moves. Yet I felt I had hit the snooze on change.  But a year later, God rocked everything I thought I knew.  Nothing dramatic or traumatic happened.  God just spoke to me.  Now that I say that, it is pretty dramatic! 

I thought I would be in Rwanda forever.  I had no idea of God’s plans except that I wanted in.  Last I heard he told me to come to Rwanda.  I didn’t usually seek to know if he kept saying stay.  I felt like he’d let me know if it was time to move on and he sure did.  I want to share this story with you because when you are in a place as long as I’ve been (nearly 10 years) an explanation is often desired by those who stay.  I know I’ve been the one who stays for a few generations of exodus in Kigali and have often wondered how people know it’s time.  Well, I want to break this into parts of how God spoke to me because it wasn’t all at once.  God loves me, this I know, and he showed me even in how he asked me to go.

FIRST WORD
In October 2017, I was invited to my first Young Life SALT (Senior African Leadership Team) gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Since then, those gatherings have been a special time of hearing from God for me.  There was a lot to be said about the first one though!  It came at a time when I was completely spent and crippled!  I had the craziest two months prior to this with having my phone stolen, and then my ankle sprained, and then my friend Kelsey getting into a terrible accident right before I left for the trip.  Both Kelsey and I went to the airport in wheelchairs, although she was going to London for surgery and I was going to SALT.  I remember sitting down with Papa Deo and Mama Irene, the spiritual consultants at the time, and lamenting about how I felt like I was under attack.  Papa Deo asked me an odd question after hearing me out.  He asked, “If you were to fall in love and the man asked you to move to California with him, would you go?” I laughed at the question thinking how ridiculous it sounded.  But I sat and thought about it and realized my answer was no.  I felt too responsible for Young Life ministry in Rwanda.  How could I up and leave it for a guy?!  Papa Deo sensed my hesitation and said this phrase that still sticks with me today. “You are not supposed to be married to ministry.”  That was the start of me putting this ministry into God’s hands and being open to his next path for me. 

SECOND WORD
A few months later, I was approached about a Young Life position in Bloomington, IN to be the YL College director, working alongside a dear friend of mine, Jeff Mahrt.  I’ve been approached by other YL areas before and usually my answer was a quick no and I never even gave it another it.  But this was different.  Two months after he mentioned the position to me I still was daydreaming about it.  My heart was free to dream and wonder about what God might have in store.  But I was at war with myself.  I was starting to want a change, but was scared to face it if it ever surfaced. 

THIRD WORD
In March 2018, I went to another SALT gathering in Dar es Salaam.  During this training, there was a lot of talk about replacing yourself in ministry.  I felt discouraged at this because I felt like as long as I had been pouring into leaders, none have been seeing themselves in my position… in other words none have seem called into full time ministry.  So I was sulking in my chair when Steve Larmey, the VP of YL Africa/Middle East at the time, asked me if I had someone to replace me.  I said no and just shook my head.  He took notice and I believe God kept me on Steve’s heart because later that week he asked to speak to me before I left. 
So we were having a big party at the end of the week, mingling and saying goodbyes with dear friends, when one of those friends, whom I had just met, approached me with these words, “Hey Micki, so I usually never say anything to anyone about things God puts on my heart to tell them unless it comes to me like 6 times.  So I’m here and God told me to tell you 10.  Does that mean anything to you?”  I was bewildered that God would speak to her about me in the first place!  I couldn’t understand what 10 would mean to me until a few moments later when I finally had my conversation with Steve.  He first asked me, “How long will you be in Rwanda? “  I was a bit flustered by this question because I felt like I had given Steve no reason to worry that I’d be leaving soon.  So I just said to him, “At least another two years, because that’s how long I would need emotionally before I could leave.”  He then said to me, “I want you to know you are not responsible for finding your replacement in ministry.  That’s my job.”  And somehow, at those words, God entered freedom into my heart.  It broke the chains of my feeling of responsibility and opened me up further to God’s new plan for my life.  I lay in bed that night, wondering what God was doing.  I still wasn’t sure what 10 meant.  I couldn’t figure out where the number 2 came from, but it came out of my mouth.  As I pondered all of this, a math equation came to my mind.  I had been in Rwanda almost 8 years. I told Steve I’d be there another 2 years.  And my friend Shay spoke 10 over me.  Lord, are you calling me back to the States?  That was the question in my heart that was exploding with emotion at the thought. 

FOURTH WORD
Over the next week, everything I read, listened to, and prayed was about this new thing God was calling me to.  I would cry on my way home from club, missing the kids and leaders already.  I mourned for months and I wasn’t even gone yet!  But I felt it in my heart, that God had something new for me.  It was a scary yet exciting time.  I felt like God was seeing me and not just what I did for him through Young Life.  He noticed me.  I mulled over that for months and started dreaming of where God would have me next.  The miracle in it all was that God placed a desire in my heart to move back to the States as well.  Three or so months later, I felt like I needed to spend some needed prayer time away to solidify if God was really saying that I should move to the States.  So I booked a solo prayer retreat at Lake Kivu for a weekend in July.  Not long after I booked that, my friend Annie started dating a guy.  Being single in Rwanda was hard but manageable especially when having single friends I could do everything with.  Annie was one of those friends I was always with.  Within a week of her dating Eric, things seemed pretty serious.  About at the week mark of their relationship, I had a sleepless night crying out to God.  I was happy for Annie, but angry that I had not yet been given a spouse of my own.  And there I was, praying about leaving Rwanda in 2 years, so in my head, I would be waiting at least another 2 years for a spouse!  I wasn’t even praying to God that night. I was raw with my emotions and just letting him know how I felt. 
The next day, I was sharing with my friend Shelbye about the night I had, crying about being single again.  As I was sharing with her, I received a text.  I looked down at it and was surprised to see that it was from Gervais asking me out to dinner.  My immediate reaction was to laugh and say to Shelbye, “Welp, I guess this will solve all my problems!”  I thought God was so funny and timely!  I also had never thought about Gervais as a potential boyfriend so I dismissed it at first.  But later that night I said yes.  Gervais and I went on our first date and then on our second.  On the second date, Gervais told me how he felt about me and asked if I felt the same.  I told him I honestly didn’t know how I felt.  Then he asked me how long I would be in Rwanda.  “I’m actually going on a prayer retreat tomorrow to ask God about that,” was my response.       
At the start of our second date, I didn’t know where this was going.  By the end of our second date, I couldn’t stop thinking about Gervais.  That continued on to the next morning on my drive to Lake Kivu.  I was so caught up in thinking about him that I went in the wrong direction for an hour before I realized I was lost!  I also thought that the timing of starting to date someone, especially a handsome Rwandan someone, was so interesting because here I was praying about leaving Rwanda! So as I sat down to pray that weekend, I asked God to speak to me.  God sent me to a verse in John 10 where it says the sheep recognize the shepherd’s voice.  He was reminding me that I heard him before.  I know his voice because I’m his sheep.  Then without any prompting, my mind was brought back to that sleepless night I had a couple weeks ago when the anguish in my heart was that I would leave Rwanda and have to wait at least 2 more years to get married.  I kid you not, I heard God say, “Why wouldn’t I give you both?”  I broke down in tears of joy, not understanding God’s love for me.  From that point on, I felt so bold in my pursuit of a relationship with Gervais and in moving to the States. 

SO WHAT'S NEXT?
For those of you who don’t know, Gervais and I got engaged after 3 months of dating and then got married in June 2019!  All of which feels like God’s 2nd greatest love story to me, second behind Jesus.  Since our 3rd date, Gervais and I have been planning to move to the States in June 2020.  We’ve kept it somewhat silent because we have wanted to remain present with friends, family, and teenagers without the constant talk about what our plans are.  Up until recently, we didn’t have any plans confirmed!  But now we know that starting in June 2020 we will be moving to my hometown of Jasper, Indiana and I will be the next Young Life Area Director for Dubois County!  We will get to sow into a community that greatly influenced me toward Christ.  We are thankful to be near family and for Gervais to live where I’m from.  There is always a happy and a sad to each transition.  We will really miss Kigali, but expect to visit as frequently as we can!  As far as Young Life ministry goes, we still have a lot of questions as to what International School YL will look like in the future, but trust that God is truly faithful and will provide who and what is needed for God’s mission to continue.  We would appreciate your prayers for the community we leave behind and the community we will go into.  Pray for us to have complete surrender to God as we mold into his plan for our lives.